much as our proper road lay along the bottom of the valley on the north; and we now had some difficulty in descending the very steep declivity on that side to regain it. Here Wady Aly, coming from Sârîs and Lâtrôn, unites with Wady 'Atallah coming from the Merj.' The large village 'Annâbeh was here in the north beyond the valley. The name suggests the Bethoannaba or Bethannaba of Jerome; which according to him was in the fourth mile from Lydda; though many said it was in the eighth mile. This seems to imply, that, even thus early, the names of 'Annâbeh and Beit Nuba were sometimes confounded; the specifications of four miles and eight miles from Lydda being still applicable to these villages respectively. Leaving Kubâb at 4.15, we descended towards the northeast, crossed Wady 'Aly, and proceeded up Wady 'Atallah towards Yalo. The position of this place was pointed out to us, as on the north side of a spur or ridge running out west from the mountains on the south of the Merj; but it was not visible from Kubâb. Our road led along the broad open valley, about S. 70° E. After half an hour our course became about E. S. E. and at 5 o'clock we reached the western extremity of the spur. We soon turned up along the hill side; and after a while passed a small Wady running down north, with a little fountain on its further side by the path. At 5.40 we came to Yâlo. This village is situated midway up this northern declivity, between two ravines running down to the plain below; it thus overlooks the beautiful meadow-like tract of the Merj Ibn 'Ömeir. There is a fountain in the western ravine, which supplies the village. The place has an old appearance; and in a cliff beyond the eastern ravine are several large caverns in the rocks; which may be natural, but have probably been enlarged. The village belongs to the family of the Sheikhs Abu Ghaush, who reside at Kuriet el-'Enab. One of the younger of them was now here, and paid us a visit in our tent. The people of Yâlo were well disposed, and treated us respectfully. The fine plain or basin, Merj Ibn 'Ömeir, which now lay spread out before us, stretches in among the hills quite to the base of the steep wall of the mountains; on the top of which are situated Upper Beth-horon and Sârîs. South of it is the ridge of Yâlo; and on the north and northwest are lower hills. 'Bearings at Kubâb: Ramleh 314°. 'Annâbeh N. el-Lâtrôn 151°. 'Amwâs 135°. Selbit 91°. Sârîs? 130°. Beit Núba 107°. 2 Onomast. art. Anob: "Est usque hodie villa juxta Diospolim quasi quarto milliario ad orientalem plagam, quæ voca tur Bethoannaba. Plerique autem affirmant in octavo ab ea milliario sitam, et appellari Bethannabam." Bearings at 4.40: el-Lâtrôn S. 14 m. 'Amwâs S. 25° E. 1 m. Selbît N. 4 E. 1 m. This last is a ruin north of the Wady. The name Ibn 'Omeir belongs to a district, and not specially to the plain. In our former journey we had looked down upon this fine tract from the high position of Beit 'Ùr el-Fôka; and the description then given we now found to be correct; with the single exception, that, as seen from so high a point, the basin seemed to be drained off more in the southwest towards Ekron; whereas, as now appears, it is drained by Wady 'Atalleh to the 'Aujeh.' In and around the plain are several villages. From Yâlo we could see Beit Nûba in the plain; Beit Lukieh at the foot of the northern hills; Rummâneh, a ruin, on the top of the mountain; also Râs Kerka' and Jemmâla on the lower parts of the mountain further north, in the district of the Simhân Sheikhs, who live at Râs Kerka', and are Keis. Could we have taken a direct route from Mejdel Yâba to Yâlo, more towards the east, it would have brought us through a tract as yet little visited, containing apparently many villages. The whole of the Merj, and indeed very much of the great plain through which we had passed to-day, was now covered with heavy crops of wheat and barley. The Merj, especially, reminded me in this respect of the rich harvest I had seen a year before in Lincolnshire, in passing from London to Scotland. The barley was now in the ear; and would soon be ready for harvesting. Many tares were mingled with the grain. The dry season, too, had already commenced; the grass in many places was beginning to lose its green; and in two or three weeks the present verdure of the fields would be no more. In a former volume I have stated the reasons for regarding Yalo as the ancient Aijalon; and the fine basin below as the valley of Aijalon, over which Joshua commanded the moon to stand still. The place had always interested us; and we were gratified in being able to spend a night in it. So far as I know, it had as yet been visited by no modern traveller.* Beit Nuba, which lay below us in the plain, about a mile distant, with a large olive grove beyond it, we may regard as the representative of the Nobe of Jerome; and was also in his day regarded by some as a Bethannaba. The historical notices are given in a former volume. This plain was selected by Richard of England as the place of his long encampment, doubtless on account of its convenience and fertility. L three villages, 'Amwâs, Beit Nuba, and Yâlo, from the Jerusalem road near Lâtrôn. This would not be possible, I think, as to Beit Nûba, and certainly not as to Yâlo. Lands of the Bible, II. p. 266. Hieron. in Ep. 86 ad Eustoch. Epit. Paulæ, p. 673; see above, p. 142. n. 1.Onomast. art. Anob; see above, p. 144. • Vol. II. p. 254. [iii. 64.] n. 2. At Yâlo we were told of a ruin in the mountains on the east, said not to be far off, called Kefir. It was, however, now too late for us to visit it from Yâlo; nor were we able afterwards to make an excursion to it from Jerusalem. But, in the name Kefir, it is impossible not to recognise the ancient Chephirah, a city of the Gibeonites, afterwards assigned to Benjamin; and, after the captivity, again inhabited by the returning exiles. From that day till this, it has remained unknown. When ascertained, it will complete our knowledge of the four cities of the Gibeonites; the other three, Gibeon, Beeroth, and Kirjath-Jearim, having already been recognised in el-Jîb, elBîreh, and Kuriet el-'Enab. 1 Tuesday, April 27th.-The morning opened with an appearance of rain, and a slight shower fell; but the clouds soon broke away, and the day became fine. We broke up from Yâlo at 6.55, with a guide for Sur'a. At first we returned on our road of last evening for ten minutes, and then kept still high along the declivity, about N. 65° W. At 7.25 we turned to the left around the shoulder of the ridge; and had 'Amwâs and Lâtrôn before us in a line, S. 47° W.3 Descending gradually we came at 7.40 to the village of 'Amwâs, lying on the gradual western declivity of a rocky hill, sufficiently high to have an extensive view of the great plain. It is now a poor hamlet consisting of a few mean houses. There are two fountains or wells of living water; one just by the village, and the other a little down the shallow valley west. former is probably the one mentioned by Sozomen in the fifth century, by Theophanes in the sixth, and again by Willibald in the eighth, as situated in a spot where three ways met (in trivio), and as possessing healing qualities.* The We noticed also fragments of two marble columns; and were told of sarcophagi near by, which had recently been opened. But the chief relic of antiquity consists in the remains of an ancient church just south of the village, originally a fine structure, built of large hewn stones. The circular eastern end is still standing, as also the two western corners; but the intervening parts lie in ruins. Such is the present state of the ancient Nicopolis." That 'Amwâs represents the ancient Emmaus or Nicopolis, situated at the foot of the mountains, and according to the Itin. 3 Hieros. twenty-two Roman miles distant from Jerusalem, and ten from Lydda, I believe no one doubts.' The name does not occur in the Old Testament; but from the first book of Maccabees and from Josephus we learn, that here Judas Maccabæus defeated the Syrian general Gorgias; that Emmaus, having been dismantled, was afterwards fortified by the Syrian Bacchides; that under the Romans it became the head of a toparchy; was afterwards reduced to slavery by Cassius; and at last was burned by order of Varus just after the death of Herod the Great. The place appears not to have received the name Nicopolis until the third century after Christ; when it was again rebuilt by the exertions of the writer Julius Africanus, who flourished about A. D. 220.5 This name, along with Emmaus, it continued to bear during the centuries of the crusades. Yet the writers of that epoch, and later travellers, who speak of a Castellum Emmaus (from the Vulgate), evidently had in view, as we shall see further on, the fortress at el-Lâtrôn, a mile distant, on the Jerusalem road. The village 'Amwâs, though in sight from that road, would seem hitherto to have been actually visited by no traveller. A question of a good deal of historical interest connects itself with this place; viz. whether it stands in any relation to the Emmaus of the New Testament, whither the two disciples were going from Jerusalem, as Jesus drew near and went with them, on the day of his resurrection? As the text of the New Testament now stands, the distance of the place from Jerusalem is said to have been sixty stadia; which, if correct, of course excludes all idea of any connection with the present 'Amwâs; the latter being at least one hundred and sixty stadia distant from the Holy City." Yet there can be no doubt, that in the earliest period of which we have any record, after the apostolic age, the opinion prevailed in the church, that Nicopolis (as it was then called) was the scene of that narrative. Both Eusebius and Jerome, in 1 Hieron. ad. Dan. c. 8 et 12: "Emaus, quæ nunc Nicopolis. ubi incipiunt montana Judææ consurgere." Itin. Hieros. p. 600. Paschal. ad A. D. 223. See Reland p. 759. c. 9. 10. Here the first host of crusaders en 1 Macc. 3, 40. 57. 4, 3. 14. 15. Hieron. camped for the last time before reaching ad. Dan. c. 8. Jerusalem; Will. Tyr. 7. 24. * Luke 24, 13-35. 3 1 Macc. 9, 50. Jos. Antt. 13. 1. 3. Jos. B. J. 3. 3. 5.-Antt. 14. 11. 2. ib. 17. 10. 9. Hieron. in Catalog. Scriptor. Eccles. "Julius Africanus, cujus quinque de temporibus extant volumina, sub Imperatore M. Aurelio Antonino... legationem pro instauratione urbis Emmaus suscepit, quæ postea Nicopolis appellata est." Chron. The Itin. Hieros. gives the distance of Nicopolis from Jerusalem at 22 R. miles. But the specifications of that Itinerary as to distances are only general, and can never be taken as exact. The traveller now occupies from six to six and a half hours between 'Amwâs and Jerusalem, over a very bad road. the fourth century, are explicit on this point; the one a leading bishop and historian, the other a scholar and translator of the Scriptures. Indeed, they seem to have known of no other interpretation; nor is there a trace of any other in any ancient writer. The same opinion continued general down through succeeding ages until the commencement of the fourteenth century; when slight traces begin to appear of the later idea, which fixed an Emmaus at Kubeibeh; a transfer of which there is no earlier vestige, and for which there was no possible ground, except to find an Emmaus at about sixty stadia from the Holy City.3 Thus, for thirteen centuries did the interpretation current in the whole church regard the Emmaus of the New Testament as identical with Nicopolis. This was not the voice of mere tradition; but the well considered judgment of men of learning and critical skill, resident in the country, acquainted with the places in question, and occupied in investigating and describing the scriptural topography of the Holy Land.-The objections which lie against this view have been well presented by Reland and others; and are the four following: First. The express statement of Luke, that Emmaus was distant from Jerusalem sixty stadia. Such is indeed the present reading, as found in all the editions and in most of the manuscripts of the New Testament that have come down to us. But it is no less true, that several manuscripts and some of them of high authority, read here one hundred and sixty; and thus point to Nicopolis. This may then have been the current reading in the days of Eusebius and Jerome. There seems indeed, to be a strong probability that it actually was so; since otherwise, those fathers in searching for the Emmaus of Luke, had only to seek at the distance of sixty stadia from Jerusalem, in order to find it. We therefore, may draw at least this definite conclusion, viz. that in their day such an Emmaus was unknown; and, also, that probably their copies read one hundred and sixty stadia.-It may have been that the word or numeral letter signifying a hundred had early begun to be dropped from 1 Onomast. art. Emaus; here Jerome, translating Eusebius, writes: "Emaus, de quo loco fuit Cleophas, cujus Lucas meminit Evangelista. Hæc est nunc Nicopolis insignis civitas Palæstina." So Sozomen H. E. 5. 21. Theophan. p. 41. Vita S. Willibaldi ab anon. § 13. Will. Tyr. 7. 24. Jac. de Vitr. 63. p. 1081. Brocardus c. 10. Sir J. Maundeville, Voiage p. 94. Ludolf de Suchem § 43; in Reissb. p. 850. See more in Vol. II. p. 255. n. 4. [iii. 66.]-Mr Williams supposes Kuriet el |